Camp Glenwood Comments and Poems

Camp Glenwood Comments and Poems

My first visit to the Camp Glenwood detention center to teach haiku poetry was on 21 March 2002. One of the staff members later sent me the following comments and poems from the students. These are all the comments and poems I received, as typed up by the staff member, with no edits (I believe that person added the capitalization of the first line of each poem, or perhaps that was a result of the autocorrect feature in Microsoft Word; however, in most cases the poems were not originally written that way).

Comments

“At first I could not understand it, but at last it was cool. I think the poems were about the way you feel and you understand it.”

“It was a fun activity and now all I do is make up little haikus whenever I have the time.”

“I am glad he came because it introduced me to a new kind of poetry.”

“I really enjoyed it and I also started to try writing haiku poems myself.”

“I learned a more simple way of writing a poem.”

“The best thing I liked was how the poems explained your mind.”

“The poems that he is famous for are so simple, but yet complex at the same time.”

“I learned that only a few simple words can express one’s deep internal feelings or just emotions that need to be expressed.”

“. . . it was that there are no limits. I can write about anything I want.”

“I can express myself in three lines. I never knew how to do that before.”

“Now when I sit outside and look around, everything is different though my eyes and ears . . . one day I’m going to look back at all the things I did as a kid and thanks to you I will see things differently and not as bad, but in a good way.”